"Acting now" is not without consequences either. Even assuming this is something we can fix, it's not a question of an extra 6 cent tax on gasoline or making everyone buy compact fluorescent lightbulbs... the optimistic proposed solutions involve decimating the world's economy, impoverishing hundreds of millions, and cutting off the food supplies of large chunks of the global population.
Given that, is it really so unreasonable to ask for proof?
What Sony's saying now is exactly what Nintendo was saying for years... the video game market in Japan has been contracting for awhile now, and the rest of the world has been fairly sluggish. That was the whole reason Nintendo has focused their recent strategy around non-gamers, Sony and Microsoft are spending more and more fighting over pieces of a shrinking pie.
Sony'd been denying this for a long time, and it finally swam up and bit them in the ass this quarter. Good for them, they finally get it. The real question is, is there time to adapt their business model?
When Microsoft sued that Canadian kid "Mike Rowe" over his name, did you assume it meant Microsoft was running out of ideas? Or when Apple sued that rumorsite over the leaks? I'm not a fan of the patent system either, but Transmeta's got an actual business based around licensing the technology they've developed.
The lawsuit is not "we wanted to license something to intel and they said no", the lawsuit is "we wanted to license something to intel, they said they didn't want to pay, but then used the technology anyhow".
Except that we also know it's binary compatible with the Gecko, which was itself just a specialized G3. The early development kits for the system were just Gamecubes with a hardwired Wiimote.
God, I've had stocks that spent over a year on "delisting" notice before... it's completely inconceivable that the NASDAQ would ever allow a big company like DELL off their exchange, though their regulations probably do require them to at least go through the motions.
It still fits into the category of "international ex post facto laws".
Some nations specifically make exceptions too, some European nations give Israeli war criminals a free pass, others have waived their rights to prosecute US officials past and present (this was about the time the US Congress passed a law calling for the invasion of the Netherlands if the International Courts tried to charge any Americans with war crimes.
I agree it's a big problem, but it's not just the US that does this. Lots of countries claim the right to arrest people for actions they took outside the country in various circumstances.
Some European nations claim the right to arrest war criminals if they come to visit (this fact forced Donald Rumsfeld to cancel more than one trip).
Others, like Austria, have speech-crime laws that allow them to arrest visiting foreigners for things they legally published in other nations.
Some anti-terror laws make it illegal to contribute to anyone who has any affiliation to a terrorist organization. But every country has a different list of terrorist organizations (and you'd be surprised how few of them ever commit any violent acts), and a different idea of what constitutes "affiliation"... if you donate to a perfectly legal charity in one country, there's a chance that in some other country, you've just commited a crime that comes with a stiff jail sentence.
And some of the most authoritarian regimes on the planet are constantly arresting foreign journalists for unkind stories they wrote long before they came to visit.
It's not computers as a whole, there's no way you could build low end systems cheaper than a pre-fab, it's only the specialized high end market, and computers are not alone in the regard. Just off of the list, for a high end house or a high end article of clothing, custom is almost always the way to go.
If I want a very high end suit, I'm not buying it off the rack, I'm going to a tailor, and if I want a very high end gaming computer, I'm not buying it from Dell, I'm either going to hire someone who knows what they're doing to build me a custom system, or do it myself.
It seems to me that in the context of an international community that's condemning you for enriching uranium for use in a light water plant, the creation of a heavy water facility that would eliminate the need to enrich uranium is not a deliberately provocative action.
Your lack of trust is regrettable, but it's not their problem. Iran's got every right to a peaceful nuclear program under international law, and there are two main ways to produce energy in a fission reactor: one is with enriched uranium in a light-water reactor, the other is with freshly mined uranium (which is produced in Iran) and a heavy water reactor. Everyone's been freaking out for months when Iran was enriching uranium for a light-water plant, now they're producing heavy water, which would be the alternative to enriching uranium, and once again, everyone is denouncing them. At this point, it really sounds less like a credible threat and more like the international community is picking on Iran because so many are agitating for war right now.
And the fact still remains that the production of heavy water is not in and of itself a hostile action, as I said, you can buy this shit on eBay.
This is not a nuclear power plant that's online (yet), but merely a facility that produces heavy water.
It's fun to get people worked up with such a headline (and almost all the AP wire sites did so), but on closer examination, it's hard to get too outraged at Iran for manufacturing something that you can buy on eBay.
Intel Macs aren't going to stay a tiny minority forever... its eventually going to be more or less the entire Mac market. There may be some benefit to the companies to be one of the first to embrace it as a platform.
That was my first thought too (I was just taking a break from a 8 hour marathon session in EU2's Grand Campaign). Patrician II is another fine example. Really most of Strategy First's lineup is pretty high brow... on the console side we also have things like Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
They're definitely out there, it's just that much like high brow films or high brow comic books, they're a niche that doesn't show up on the radar unless you're really looking for them.
Slashdot Mirror
"Acting now" is not without consequences either. Even assuming this is something we can fix, it's not a question of an extra 6 cent tax on gasoline or making everyone buy compact fluorescent lightbulbs... the optimistic proposed solutions involve decimating the world's economy, impoverishing hundreds of millions, and cutting off the food supplies of large chunks of the global population.
Given that, is it really so unreasonable to ask for proof?
What Sony's saying now is exactly what Nintendo was saying for years... the video game market in Japan has been contracting for awhile now, and the rest of the world has been fairly sluggish. That was the whole reason Nintendo has focused their recent strategy around non-gamers, Sony and Microsoft are spending more and more fighting over pieces of a shrinking pie.
Sony'd been denying this for a long time, and it finally swam up and bit them in the ass this quarter. Good for them, they finally get it. The real question is, is there time to adapt their business model?
Somebody's got to, either Jesus can do it, or Gabe and Tycho can do it. So long as Jack repents.
Yeah, true brilliance requires total incompatibility with existing products.
When Microsoft sued that Canadian kid "Mike Rowe" over his name, did you assume it meant Microsoft was running out of ideas? Or when Apple sued that rumorsite over the leaks? I'm not a fan of the patent system either, but Transmeta's got an actual business based around licensing the technology they've developed.
The lawsuit is not "we wanted to license something to intel and they said no", the lawsuit is "we wanted to license something to intel, they said they didn't want to pay, but then used the technology anyhow".
New? There have been companies who were exclusively in the business of research for a long time.
Except that we also know it's binary compatible with the Gecko, which was itself just a specialized G3. The early development kits for the system were just Gamecubes with a hardwired Wiimote.
God, I've had stocks that spent over a year on "delisting" notice before... it's completely inconceivable that the NASDAQ would ever allow a big company like DELL off their exchange, though their regulations probably do require them to at least go through the motions.
Of course you could also choose the always unmentioned option of
OMG the Military isn't attacking civilians at all
It still fits into the category of "international ex post facto laws".
Some nations specifically make exceptions too, some European nations give Israeli war criminals a free pass, others have waived their rights to prosecute US officials past and present (this was about the time the US Congress passed a law calling for the invasion of the Netherlands if the International Courts tried to charge any Americans with war crimes.
I agree it's a big problem, but it's not just the US that does this. Lots of countries claim the right to arrest people for actions they took outside the country in various circumstances.
Some European nations claim the right to arrest war criminals if they come to visit (this fact forced Donald Rumsfeld to cancel more than one trip).
Others, like Austria, have speech-crime laws that allow them to arrest visiting foreigners for things they legally published in other nations.
Some anti-terror laws make it illegal to contribute to anyone who has any affiliation to a terrorist organization. But every country has a different list of terrorist organizations (and you'd be surprised how few of them ever commit any violent acts), and a different idea of what constitutes "affiliation"... if you donate to a perfectly legal charity in one country, there's a chance that in some other country, you've just commited a crime that comes with a stiff jail sentence.
And some of the most authoritarian regimes on the planet are constantly arresting foreign journalists for unkind stories they wrote long before they came to visit.
Why not execute them?
In all fairness science hasn't been a government run institution for that long.
It was a DS9 episode actually, the one where they travel back in time to the TOS episode "The trouble with tribbles"
It's not computers as a whole, there's no way you could build low end systems cheaper than a pre-fab, it's only the specialized high end market, and computers are not alone in the regard. Just off of the list, for a high end house or a high end article of clothing, custom is almost always the way to go.
If I want a very high end suit, I'm not buying it off the rack, I'm going to a tailor, and if I want a very high end gaming computer, I'm not buying it from Dell, I'm either going to hire someone who knows what they're doing to build me a custom system, or do it myself.
It seems to me that in the context of an international community that's condemning you for enriching uranium for use in a light water plant, the creation of a heavy water facility that would eliminate the need to enrich uranium is not a deliberately provocative action.
Your lack of trust is regrettable, but it's not their problem. Iran's got every right to a peaceful nuclear program under international law, and there are two main ways to produce energy in a fission reactor: one is with enriched uranium in a light-water reactor, the other is with freshly mined uranium (which is produced in Iran) and a heavy water reactor. Everyone's been freaking out for months when Iran was enriching uranium for a light-water plant, now they're producing heavy water, which would be the alternative to enriching uranium, and once again, everyone is denouncing them. At this point, it really sounds less like a credible threat and more like the international community is picking on Iran because so many are agitating for war right now.
And the fact still remains that the production of heavy water is not in and of itself a hostile action, as I said, you can buy this shit on eBay.
No peaceful use outside of that enormous heavy water nuclear power plant that's being built right next to this factory.
This is not a nuclear power plant that's online (yet), but merely a facility that produces heavy water.
It's fun to get people worked up with such a headline (and almost all the AP wire sites did so), but on closer examination, it's hard to get too outraged at Iran for manufacturing something that you can buy on eBay.
I know people still using original Apple IIe's as well, but they don't go out looking for boxed retail games.
Intel Macs aren't going to stay a tiny minority forever... its eventually going to be more or less the entire Mac market. There may be some benefit to the companies to be one of the first to embrace it as a platform.
That was my first thought too (I was just taking a break from a 8 hour marathon session in EU2's Grand Campaign). Patrician II is another fine example. Really most of Strategy First's lineup is pretty high brow... on the console side we also have things like Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
They're definitely out there, it's just that much like high brow films or high brow comic books, they're a niche that doesn't show up on the radar unless you're really looking for them.
Why not private individuals?
As with most things, if this is really something people want, they will be willing to chip in and help pay for it.
If some non-profit in my town were planning something like this, I'd probably donate to it.
The Alien and Sedition Acts happened even before that.
Yeah, I'd spend a lot of time worrying about that.
I don't lock my garage either, and there hasn't been a single orgy.